


Condemned

by thegirlnamedcove



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Feelings, Gen, Memories, Pre-Season/Series 01, The Hale House, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 06:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16299989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlnamedcove/pseuds/thegirlnamedcove
Summary: From the front, you could hardly tell there was anything wrong with the Hale house.





	Condemned

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, I was struck with the image of Derek showing up in town and seeing his family house for the first time since him and Laura left for New York. He doesn't know she's dead yet, he doesn't know about Scott, he doesn't know about the Argents. He's just here, with all his guilt and pain held close against his chest, looking for a place to sleep.

It starts at the turnoff from the main road. What was once a dark, paved asphalt road is now covered over in leaves and detritus, the smell of rot seeping in through the air vents. It won’t get better, as he gets closer, but he hits his turn signal anyway and eases the Camaro onto Oak Pointe Drive.

The brambles have crept over the edges of the road, clearly forgotten by the Park’s Department which was supposed to care for the preserve in his and Laura’s absence. Before they left, before…..well, the fire. The  _ arson _ . His family had cared for it. He remembers long summer days hacking those same brambles back with a cheap machete from Harbor Freight and Laura at his side showing off her greater strength as the older sibling and alpha favorite. The image of it swims in front of his eyes as if he were seeing a pair of ghosts, one a middle school boy with a physique like a string bean and one a tall teenage girl with broad muscular shoulders and hair cropped close to her head--she wouldn’t hit her girley phase and grow her hair out until college.

It was a long road, maybe five minutes drive from one end to the other, and each inch he travelled wound the intangible cord around his throat tighter and tighter. By the time it began to widen, and he started the gentle turn that revealed his childhood home, he was sure he’d forgotten how to breathe altogether.

From the front, you could hardly tell there was anything wrong.

Sure, it was dirty. More leaves were heaped around the steps, and there were a few sharp spikes of crabgrass growing up through the porch slats. But the walls were still standing, and the windows unbroken, and he could imagine if he tried that they had just decorated for Halloween. His father had loved Halloween, used to say it was the one time of year that he stood a chance of being as scary as the rest of them. Dad was always joking like that, about his humanity, while still being sure to expose them to human culture so they wouldn’t grow up as isolated as some wolves do.

He parked haphazardly, his foot coming down suddenly against the brake and hands locking around the steering wheel, and just stared for a while.

Mom had gone along with dad’s wishes, although a bit begrudgingly. She’d been born a wolf, homeschooled and only leaving family land for college, and she didn’t fully understand why they should integrate into the greater human world. Why they should spend so much of their time in settings where they had to hide. But she loved dad, and she loved her kids, and….Derek felt the tears overtake his eyes, and blinked them away.

He ratchetted the door open, feeling reckless. As soon as he opened the front door, or even walked around the side to reveal the sections which he knew had been destroyed, he would be breaking the illusion, and it felt like destroying them all over again. He had to go in, he needed somewhere to sleep tonight until he could find Laura, but...it felt careless being here, after everything he had done. After he had caused it to look this way at all.

As he moved closer, the smell of blood began to prick at the edges of his senses. Bright and acrid, it made the tears come more freely, now from panic as much as grief. He quickened his steps, taking the stairs two at a time until he was at the door, and his hand was closed around the handle.

Right here, on the threshold, his house still looked whole. His family was still inside, or many of their ashes were anyway, and he was not with them. His presence wouldn’t sully their resting place.

But the blood was fresh, and whoever had lost it was in trouble or worse, and he knew mom and dad deserved better than to be a dumping ground for whatever poor soul had gotten themselves hurt in the woods and chosen to curl up in this shell of a house. So he tightened his grip and pushed against the frame, breaking the seal and allowing the reality of the house, the full objective uncaring weight of it, to come spilling out of the doorway.

The grand staircase was burned black. The second floor was near gone. His bedroom, in the back left of the house, visible from the door, was a black gaping hole. The floor was warped and covered over in lichens and moss, stinking of decay.

Laura’s body--the top half of her body--lay curled on the floor by the foot of the stairs, her eyes staring blankly, unable to see him standing there.


End file.
